A Certain Family
by Fusiera
Summary: A collection of Arclight family drabbles & oneshots ( mainly ) centered around their childhood. Sporadic updates.
1. like me - like you

"They're both blue, too, and the clouds sometimes look like fish. And they're both made up of water — you said so, remember? The atmosphere has _vapor_ in it!"

"Those are some very keen observations." Chris smiles at Michael, attentively listening to his conclusions as the smaller's eager fingers turn another page in the book they were sharing — _Anomalies of the Ocean._ Their eyes flicker to different things, then, where Michael's are drawn to the pictures of strangely colored beaches in awe, his own gloss over detailed explanations written on the side margins.

Chris shifts slightly. Taking a sip of water, refreshing his throat, the elder opens his mouth to read aloud to the child in his lap once again — expect, he pauses for a moment, and something else comes out instead. "You're forgetting one other thing they share."

"I am?" Michael blinks up at him owlishly, titling his head when Chris nods at him.

"Most of the ocean is unexplored, and so is space — everything just beyond those _swimming _clouds." It wouldn't hurt to feed Michael's imagination a _little_. Their mother would have done the same. "There's still a lot more for us to discover and come to understand."

"They really _are_ the same then!"

His smile softens at his kid brother's starry-eyed gaze. "You could very well say that."

"Like you and me!" Michael beams up at him again and for some unknown reason to Chris, he is taken back by that statement, but it feels as if some sort of doubt had been dispelled.

He returns the smile back finally, and the initial shock is defeated.

"Like you and me." He repeats back, gently patting rosy locks whose owner giggles before he continues their story time.

* * *

**NOTES:** I was playing a game with a friend of mine! I asked for three words to base a drabble off of. The words were: ocean, cloud & beach. Hope you enjoyed!

Chris thought Michael's favorite was Thomas, but he loves them both! :')


	2. there was a lion under the bed

Michael would crawl into his brother's bed every night — slowly, carefully, the springs of the bed creaked at his weight and would wake his brother ( Thomas was always awake, waiting, he needed Michael as much as Michael needed him ) or alert the custodian. When they had first come to the orphanage, Michael would rouse his brother first and ask in a whisper for permission, but the younger never failed to crawl to other's side, and eventually, there was no longer a reason for Michael to ask or even for Thomas to fake a bothered response.

But something is different tonight. Thomas isn't in his bed.

"_Thomas...?_" Michael feels a panic rise in his chest. "Thomas—" He tries again, thoughts evolving worry into the endless possibilities his brain tortures him with — that something awful had happened to Thomas, too.

As if his eyes can't be trusted at first, Michael pulls back the sheets completely, met again with the same absence of his brother that should be there. He feels tears form in his eyes and threaten to breach lashes, but it isn't his sob he hears break into the air.

_Underneath the mattress._

Michael immediately drops to his hands and knees, finding the older curled into himself beneath sharp springs and the splintering wood of the bed frame. The other is only half-illuminated by the dim entrance lights down the hall, but Michael can still see the iridescent tears glistening on his cheeks.

"D-Don't look at me—" He was never supposed to be discovered like _this_. Another sob escapes Thomas' trembling lips and hands move to cover his face like a mask, violently erasing the existence of tears and suffocating his every breath thereafter, his form still wracking with silent sobs.

The younger swallows, ducking his head as he crawls closer to the knotted form of his sibling. "I... I won't, big brother. I'll close my eyes." He assures, blindly wrapping his arms around Thomas in his promise, feeling him _tense_ as if mulling to reject him in the end.

Instead, for a moment, neither moves, until Michael feels foreign tears spill onto his cheek as Thomas unfolds to tightly squeeze him back, burying his face into his shoulder. His own fingers curl into the older's shirt as a result, head burrowing into an open chest.

They were each other's lifeline here, but Thomas was the bravest of them both — of _all_ of them.

* * *

**NOTES: **I guess I can officially add the angst tag. Tbh I was going to make this longer & end on more a light-hearted note, but oops! ᕕ-ᐛ-ᕗ I also grew tired of rereading this, so hopefully it is at least mostly free of mistakes.


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